Wednesday, March 2, 2016

To say the 2016 primary season has been surprising would be
an understatement. A presumed Democratic
nominee who was supposed to coast to victory has faced a tough challenge. The GOP race is now coalescing around a front
runner who practically everyone would have laughed off less than a year ago.

This topsy-turvy situation has amplified the already significant
challenges that pollsters face when trying to take the pulse of voters in
presidential primaries and caucuses. Super
Tuesday presented the first large-scale polling test of the nomination contest. Interestingly, only a few national polling
organizations devoted significant resources to polling these races (more on
that below).

Monmouth University conducted polls in four of the nine
primary states in the weeks leading up to Super Tuesday – Alabama, Oklahoma,
Texas, and Virginia. We had a significant
miss in the Oklahoma Republican primary where, like every other poll in the
state, we forecast a Donald Trump victory when Ted Cruz was the actual winner. On the other hand, Monmouth was the only poll
to accurately forecast a Bernie Sanders victory in the Democratic contest in
that very same state. Monmouth’s forecasts
were accurate in the other three states we polled.

Monmouth’s Democratic primary polls were closest – or second
closest in the case of Texas – to the actual margin of victory of all the polls
taken in those four states over the past month.
Our Democratic primary results compared to the actual margin of victory:

TX : Vote -
Clinton +32 / Monmouth Poll - Clinton +34

AL : Vote - Clinton +59 / Monmouth
Poll - Clinton +48

VA : Vote - Clinton +29 / Monmouth
Poll - Clinton +27

OK : Vote - Sanders +10 / Monmouth
Poll - Sanders +5

On the GOP side, Monmouth came closest to the actual margin
of victory in Texas and Alabama:

TX : Vote -
Cruz +17 / Monmouth Poll - Cruz +15

AL: Vote -
Trump +22 / Monmouth Poll - Trump +23

Monmouth had the correct winner in the Virginia GOP primary,
but the margin was tighter than our poll:
Vote - Trump +3 / Monmouth Poll - Trump +14. It’s worth noting that our Virginia poll was
conducted a week prior to Super Tuesday, specifically before the crucial debate
when Rubio decided to take on Trump. That performance appeared to help
Rubio’s performance in Virginia, although not enough to change the overall
outcome.

As mentioned, we had the wrong winner in Oklahoma GOP
primary: Vote - Cruz +6 / Monmouth Poll - Trump +12. Every poll in Oklahoma had Trump ahead by a significant
margin. Examining all the state exit polls from Super Tuesday shows that
Oklahoma actually had the highest number of Republican voters (33%) who said
they made up their mind in the last few days.
These voters broke significantly for Cruz (37%) and Rubio (38%) over
Trump (15%).

Despite the stakes involved in Tuesday’s races, only four
national polling organizations polled in at least three of the nine primary
states during the month of February. In
addition to Monmouth, CBS/YouGov and NBC/Wall Street Journal/Marist polled in
three states and PPP conducted Democratic-only primary polls in all nine
states.

In Texas, the one state where all four organizations polled
the Democratic primary, Monmouth’s 32 point margin for Hillary Clinton was the
closest to the actual result. CBS/YouGov
had the margin at 24 points, PPP had 23 points, and NBC/Wall Street
Journal/Marist had 21 points. In the
Texas Republican primary, Monmouth’s 15 point margin for Cruz was also closer
to the actual result. NBC/Wall Street
Journal had a 13 point margin and CBS/YouGov had an 11 point margin.

This primary season has been particularly tough to poll, so
it is understandable why more national polling operations did not dip their
toes in the water. Despite the one
missed call, Monmouth is pleased with its Super Tuesday polling results.